


The Birds Who Smile (a crippled continuation)

by Raberba girl (Raberba_girl)



Series: The Birds Who Smile [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2020-10-26 23:55:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20750870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raberba_girl/pseuds/Raberba%20girl
Summary: I have despaired of being able to finishThe Birds Who Smileproperly in the foreseeable future; this is the best I can do.





	1. SRD: Jason's return

It's been over ten months and I've made virtually zero progress on _The Birds Who Smile_. I am frustrated and discouraged almost to the point of tears at my apparent inability to finish novel-length fics; I haven't ever finished a single one except for _RuroKen Star Wars_, where all I had to do was recycle the plot of the Star Wars movies. If I was a reader and the only choices were to see a fic be permanently abandoned or see a disorganized collection of scenes, including the ending, I'd pick the latter. So once a week starting today, I will be posting TBWS scenes until all my ideas for the main story have been drafted. Maybe someday I will be able to organize the drafts and fill in all the gaps, but if not, at least the fic will be finished in _some_ way, even if it's crippled and out of order.

****If you paid money to read this work of fanfiction, that means it was stolen and reposted without the author's knowledge or consent. Please do not support apps or web sites that repost without permission and/or illegally profit off of other people's work.**

_The Birds Who Smile_, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Super rough draft: Jason's return

Jason jerked in the Kryptonian clone's arms. "Gah! I told you to wake me up when we were close to Gotham--" He squirmed as he spoke, trying to get free, "--not on the manor's doorstep. Biz, put me down!"

"Red Him home." Bizarro pushed amiably past Bruce, still carrying Jason even though the Red Hood was now struggling in earnest.

"Thanks for the invite, we'd be happy to stay a while," Roy said to Bruce with a grin as Kori walked past, still carrying him.

Bruce sighed and moved back, opening the door wider for Artemis.

Bizarro finally put Jason down and the lead Outlaw complained the whole time he brushed himself off and peeled away his mask. "You okay, Jay?" Dick asked in concern, stepping close and scanning his brother for injuries. "We thought you were dead again."

"Nah, just dead tired."

"You were gone for _ages_, Jay, all five of you, and no one could figure out where you were!"

"We are safe now, Dick," Kori said gently. "I am sorry you missed the adventure."

"What adventure?!"

"_crow_?" Jack's little voice piped up curiously, almost right behind Jason.

Jason spooked, _leaping_ away and exclaiming, "HOLY crap, monsterbirds, I forgot!!"

Everyone's attention turned to the trio of children near Dick. Peter giggled and said, "Dda't mmy Jja'ssonn" before shyly ducking to hide behind John.

The oldest bird's eyes were on Starfire. _"Hello, Pretty Fire,"_ he signed, and Dick interpreted.

"Hello again, little one." She moved close and stooped down to kiss his face. He frowned and rubbed at his forehead at the sensation of knowledge transferring from his mind to hers.

"Holy crap, they're people now," Jason breathed in amazement, taking in all the changes. The twisted, feral creatures he'd left behind were gone, and now in their place were three bright-eyed little boys in pajamas who looked like any other healing abuse survivors. It couldn't have been Bruce who'd brought about such a transformation.... Had it been Dick's magic touch again, like he'd done with Damian? Was it Alfred? Zatanna??

"Wait, Kori, John's not fluent yet," Dick said. "You might wanna get another sample. Bruce knows ASL, too," he added, mindful of the other ex-boyfriend present.

Bruce took a step back, alarmed at the thought of being kissed by someone who could collect data from his mind in the process. Luckily, Roy, who was still on Kori's back, rolled his eyes and said, "Whatever, it's not like I had sole kissing rights even when we were together. Just be quick, I'm injured and would really love a bed right now."

Kori stepped close and gently grasped Dick's face, drawing him in and pressing her lips to his temple. She pulled back and they exchanged a brief smile before she turned to the birds and signed with one hand, _"I will take my friend to bed. Will see you in the morning."_

_"Good night,"_ three sets of little hands gestured, and John added, _"I love you."_

_"Love you!"_ Kori moved toward the stairs, where Alfred was waiting to show her and Roy to the guest rooms.

*idk transition*

"Jason, where _were_ you?"

Jason exhaled sharply. "Look, Bruce, I _tried_, okay? First I was gonna be a good little time traveler and follow the rules, but _that_ only lasted about five minutes; then I wasn't gonna save 'em because if you grew up happy, I'd probably die on the streets, but then they were _screaming_ like that after they threw baby-you clear and I was like 'f--" He glanced at the children. "--'eff it' and saved them; except then it didn't flipping matter because you guys went out to a movie to celebrate surviving the fire and they got shot by some random mugger, but at least they went quick this time and didn't take five days to die in agony, okay? I did good; YOU'RE WELCOME."

Jason turned away, his face red, and went a little too enthusiastically to join Artemis and Bizarro in playing with the birds.

Bruce felt like his brain was broken for several full minutes. _'...A FIRE......?!'_

*transition

Jason formed a finger gun and pointed it between Bizarro's eyes. "Buddy," he said conversationally, "if you squish my little brothers, I will put a Kryptonite bullet through your head, I am so serious. Do not sit on them, do not squeeze them, do not break them. Got it? _Be gentle with my baby brothers._"

"Bizarro not squish Baby-them," the clone agreed.

"Good man." Jason went to crouch in front of the children. "Listen up, chickadees - my friend over there, he's a nice guy, but he's _strong_, and he's clumsy. Do not get behind him. Always make sure you can see his eyes. If you cannot see his eyes, he cannot see you, and he will squish you and kill you. Got it?"

They gazed at him solemnly.

"Tell me that you understand."

_"We are cats, he is us,"_ John signed. Jason cocked his head in confusion until Bruce explained that practicing with Damian's pets was how they'd trained the boys to interact with other small, fragile, precious things.

"All right, cool. Pete? Tell me you understand how to play with Bizarro."

"I nno bbe ssquisshh."

"You better not, or there'll be hell to pay when you get back from the Lazarus Pit or Apokolips or _whatever_ the universe uses to barf up Bruce's next dead kid. Jack? How do you play with Bizarro?"

_"I will always see his eyes."_

"Perfect." Jason straightened up and gestured grandly. "Kiddos, these are my partners, Artemis and Bizarro. Guys, these are Baby-them: John, Peter, and Jack. Peter's basically me from some hell alternate universe, so if anything bad happens to him, I will be extra-mad."

The little boys curiously trotted over to their big brother's teammates. Bizarro crouched and cupped his hands together; Jack climbed into them and sat like a prince as he was lifted. John, clinging to Bizarro's giant forearm like a koala, giggled as he rose.

"Baby-them am cute," Bizarro remarked, studying the children as they clambered over him.

Peter, meanwhile, had headed straight for Artemis. "Hhelllo."

"Greetings, young one."

He raised his arms. "U'pp, plllease." Obligingly, she picked him up, and he gently touched her face just underneath a bright green eye. "Ppre'tty."

She shot a wry look at Jason, who grinned back. "See? I don't have to be grown up and tipsy to tell."

bruce lets barbara know jay's home and safe

artemis & bizarro shown to guest rooms for the night

Peter soon got over his shyness and wouldn't leave his older self alone. He hung onto Jason's hand and dragged him to the birds' room, where he started eagerly showing him toys, photos, posters, and other things of interest. _"This is Dog,"_ he introduced. _"Say hello!"_

"Hi, Dog," Jason chuckled.

[*i am too tired to birdify this dialogue right now] "Hey, hey Big Peter, I have to tell you something important," Jack insisted. "There are TWO places, see? Two! And...and there is a big me and a _little_ me, oh no! And...a big Johnny and little Johnny, and a little Peter, and now look, there is a BIG Peter, too~! And oh no, that Bad Laugh Man, but he is SQUISH like bug and _Daddy_ is a good boy and the Batman, he does not Laugh! He _doesn't_ because it's bad, and yaaaaay!" He looked expectantly at Jason.

Jason stared back, looking perplexed. "Why are you guys so cute???" he asked, sounding like it was a legitimate question.

["Because we li'l monsta babies,"] Jack answered solemnly.

"Nope, that's it, you're mine now," Jason said decisively, scooping the younger boys into his arms. "All mine. I have three children now." Jack crow-shrieked in surprise and Peter giggled madly.

John glared. _"They are my babies, not yours."_

"But how can you have babies when you're a baby yourself?" Jason asked in all seriousness.

transition

Jason ended up sleeping in the birds' bed that night, with Peter cuddled in his arms, Jack curled up at his back, and John draped right over him.

xXx

Author's notes: I read somewhere that Starfire in the comics can't kiss-learn non-verbal languages, but I think that's kind of an outdated concept (sign language engages the same parts of the brain that spoken language does), so I'm going to treat sign language the same as spoken languages in regard to Tamaranean powers.

You know what's funny? In fandom, Jason has the worst potty mouth, but in the comics, Jason's the only one who seems to make a point about keeping his language clean, unlike the rest of the Bats who seem to have their language censored more and more often these days.


	2. SRD: Physical aftermath of John letting his guard down

_The Birds Who Smile_, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Super rough draft: Uh....idk how to tastefully label this....... Physical aftermath of John letting his guard down

A/N: Did I say I'd post a new scene every week? I meant I'd post a new scene whenever the heck I feel like it.

(_Gifts From the Sea_ has been causing me a lot of trouble, but I think I _finally_ figured out how to get past the most immediate roadblock. I almost never sit struggling for words in front of a blank screen because I do the prep work in my head so that when it comes to write, I can just _write_. This time was an exception because I don't know enough about real-life procedures when it comes to things like foster care. Internet research only gets you so far when you're trying to answer questions like "How can Bruce plausibly take care of Jason in a way my story requires AND meet the needs of his secret mermaid son without anyone getting in trouble." X''D)

o.o.o

*first night after "Mended;" except jason decided to sleep with the birds that night and threw off my groove.

Jason: oh i'm sorry so the babies CAN be trusted to sleep on their own now? *eyebrow raise*

no you're right you're right; i'll fix it later. <strike>#writingishard</strike> #writingisaFunChallenge

xXx

Bruce jerked awake when he sensed an intent gaze. His youngest child, who'd been standing over him and staring, scrambled back. "Jack?"

"Daddy?" the little boy asked anxiously.

"What is it, Jack? What's wrong?"

"Jjohnnny ssad."

Bruce was immediately on high alert and hurried to get out of bed. Jack nervously skipped even farther away, then trotted after him when Bruce strode down the hall to the children's room.

The overhead light and bedside lamps were all still off, but the multiple night lights glowed enough for Bruce to see John, sitting up but curled tightly into himself with his arms around his folded up legs, and Peter, standing over his brother and twittering in an encouraging way. As soon as Bruce entered, John hid his face against his knees and Peter ran to hide under the desk.

"John, what's wrong? What hap--?" Although the boy did not move or speak, Bruce was now close enough to detect the smell. "...Johnny," he said softly, "it's okay. You're not in trouble." There was no response except that John started to tremble a little.

"Daddy mad?" Jack asked anxiously. _"Angry? Bad boy?"_

"No. There was just a little accident, but it's okay. Nobody is angry and nobody is in trouble. We'll just clean it up and then you boys can go back to sleep." Although he wasn't at all angry with John for wetting the bed, he had to hide how disturbed he was that it had happened. _'If it's not one thing, it's another....'_ Just when the boy _finally_ seemed to be getting better, here was yet another cause for concern, though Bruce had no idea why incontinence was suddenly a problem now when it hadn't been before. Shouldn't John be _less_ stressed out now that he knew the truth? ...Or did anxiety strike deeper than before, now that he'd finally let his guard down?

He meant to ask the younger boys, but forgot when John, at the words 'clean up,' suddenly jumped out of bed and started yanking his clothes off, sobbing hard by the time he curled up in the bathtub with his arms over his head.

"John, it's all right," Bruce said in a pained voice, following him in. "You're safe. Do you want a bath, or do you just want to rinse off?"

There was no response, and Jack soon came in holding Elephant. "Daddy, Jjohnnny ssad!"

"Thank you, Jack, but Elephant will not like it if we let her get wet. Here, these are better," he said, pulling the tiger and bear bath toys out of the plastic basket that was suction-cupped to the wall. When he put them into John's hands, the boy stopped crying and clutched them hard, staring at them. Jack watched intently at Bruce's side, and Peter from the doorway, as Bruce started to run the bath.

"Daddy," Jack insisted, "I ccean!"

"Yes, I know, you don't have to take a bath again."

"Jjohnny ggoo'd bboy?"

"Yes."

Jack relaxed and started to pet John's hair, twittering at him soothingly.

After a long moment, John clutched the bath toys to his chest so he could use one hand to sign shakily, _"Scared, bad dream, scared."_

"I'm very sorry that you had a bad dream, Johnny."

_"Batman Laugh kill brothers hurt kill me."_

"It was just a dream. It's not true, it didn't happen. The Man Who Laughs is dead, you are safe here and we all love you."

John finally looked directly at him. _"...B?"_

"What is it, Johnny?"

For a long time, John seemed to want to say something, but didn't express it. The way he was lying down meant that Bruce couldn't let the tub fill very high, so he turned the water off. It was quiet for a while, until Jack got bored and wandered out of the bathroom. John finally signed, _"You love me?"_

"Very much, Johnny. I love you very much.

_"Protect me."_

"I would do anything to keep you safe, Johnny."

John finally relaxed a little and shivered. _"Cold."_

As Bruce was pulling a towel out of the cabinet, he heard "Poker Face" starting to play in the bedroom. He hastily wrapped John in the towel and carried him to an armchair, then went to check Jack's phone.

"MMAI! MMAI!"

"I'll give it back in a minute," Bruce said, holding the flailing child back with one hand as he raised the phone high with the other. Thankfully, the six-year-old wasn't watching the official music video; someone seemed to have filled a folder on the phone with videos of Jack's favorite songs paired with child-safe pictures. The resulting thumbnails were easier for the boy to distinguish between than text filenames, and Bruce wondered which of his older children had thought to do that for their little brother. "Here."

Jack snatched his phone back as soon as it was offered and crawled to a corner of the bed, hunching protectively over his treasure.

Bruce rubbed at his face and looked around. The older boys were still watching him, John curled up in a towel nest and Peter crouched over him. "All right, John, come here, I need to show you something. Peter, you may come also if you want. Oh, and let me get Elephant."

Peter dashed back when Bruce approached and crowed, angrily helpless. John trembled when Bruce touched him but compliantly got to his feet and followed, clutching the towel tightly around him and Elephant under his arm.

"Look, Johnny," Bruce said gently. "I'm putting some pairs of underwear for you here in this drawer, and I'll tell Alfred to get some pull-ups you can wear at night; they'll be in the drawer, too. And we'll put something on the mattress, so nothing will get damaged if it happens again. If it does, if you wake up and it's wet and smells bad, don't worry. It's okay, no one will be angry. You can call for me, or Dick or Alfred or whoever you want. Or if you don't want help, you can come in here and change into a fresh pull-up and throw the old one away, and go right back to sleep. All right? Or if you just want someone to come comfort you, you can call us for that, too. Someone will sit with you, or read to you or sing to you or whatever you like." He paused. "Do you understand?"

_"...You are angry. Not angry.....?"_

"Not angry," Bruce said firmly. "I am not angry at all. If you wake up wet again, we will help you. John? What happens if you wake up wet again?"

_"...Help, clean."_

"Yes, that's right. Good boy."

The bedsheets still smelled and needed to be changed. Bruce got John dressed and loaded him into a wagon along with Jack, who was now wholly absorbed in his phone. Peter didn't want to get into the wagon and it was too heavy for him to pull easily, but he did follow at a distance as Bruce went down the hall with the wagon handle in one hand and a laundry bag slung over his other shoulder. Peter did _not_ like being trapped in the elevator with Bruce, but he was also unwilling to lose sight of his brothers, so he hunched as far away as he could get, clutching a fork. Jack apparently wasn't the only one adept at palming potential weapons during mealtimes.

"I'm going to have to have Alfred start counting the silverware every meal as if it's the *?th century*, aren't I," Bruce remarked dryly.

Peter raced out of the elevator as soon as it came to a stop and resumed stalking his father from a safe distance away. The other boys were fine in the wagon, which Bruce pulled all the way to the laundry room. Then he filled the washing machine with the bedsheets, read all the directions on the appliance and on the box of detergent carefully, and held his breath when he finally started the cycle, hoping he hadn't done anything horrendously wrong.

He felt a little triumphant as he faced his sons again. Jack was still doing his best impression of a phone-obsessed millennial; John was curled up, gazing him out of the very corner of his eye. "Next mission: find fresh sheets," Bruce said. "And a tarp." The tarp was easy enough; he fetched one from the garage as the boys waited in the hall just past the mud room.

Bedding was harder. He tried the first linen closet he came to, but the sheets he found ended up not fitting the children's bed. As it turned out, there were actually spare sheets stored on a high shelf in the boys' closet, though when Bruce pulled down a set and started unfolding the fitted one, Jack piped up, "No, Daddy, I ddon' wwan't dat one!"

"Jack, John is tired and needs to go to sleep. We need to put sheets on the bed so he can get some rest."

"Bbu't I wwan't wwobots!"

Bruce squinted, trying to puzzle out the word. "...Robots?"

_"Yes! Teach me!"_

"This is 'robot,' " Bruce said, signing the new word.

_"Robot robot robot!!"_

Bruce looked and was a little surprised to indeed find a set of sheets with robot designs. This time it was Peter who objected.

_"I want dog!"_

"Oh for the love of--" He rubbed at his face in exasperation. "Look, John is the one who needed the sheets changed, so John gets to pick, all right?" He turned to the oldest boy. "Johnny, which set of sheets do you want? Jack wants the robot sheets and Peter wants the dog sheets, but I want to know which sheets _you_ want."

_"...Blue."_

"Blue sheets?" Bruce went yet again to the closet. He didn't know if John had meant the dark Nightwing-themed sheets or the eggshell blue set, so he pulled down both. John pointed to the brighter color, and relaxed a little when Bruce unfolded the sheets and struggled to apply them to the mattress over the tarp. "Stop whining, Jack; you'll get a turn to pick the sheets later." He frowned at how loudly the tarp was crinkling as he fought with the bedding. Would the boys be able to sleep with that thing crackling in their ears at every move? _'I'll ask Alfred in the morning if he has something better to replace it with....'_

The bed ended up with two corners of the fitted sheet reasonably hooked over them, the third painfully stretched, and fourth with a tear in the seam from when Bruce had unsuccessfully tried to force it over the last corner. He guilty piled some books on it to weigh it down. "That is...the best I can do...." He took a deep breath and turned to the birds. Jack was asleep already, curled up in John's discarded towel with his still-bandaged*?* thumb in his mouth. Bruce moved him to the bed and then called to the older kids, "All right, boys, time to sleep."

*john makes bruce sing except they still won't all sleep in the same room as b without a guard, blaaahhh....

*alfred's like "seriously bruce" and replaces the friggin' _tarp_ with a plastic mattress cover. they get some pull-ups and it happens a couple more times (second time is very mild), but john takes care of it himself (only sign it even happened is that they find the soiled pull-ups in the trash the next morning) and it soon clears up on its own (i mean he probably still has nightmares but the bedwetting stops)


	3. SRD: Seatbelt training ("cars are dangerous" slideshow) / Bruce sings to all his children

_The Birds Who Smile_, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Super rough draft: Seatbelt training ("cars are dangerous" slideshow) / Bruce sings to all his children

*i REALLY need to gauge the true story flow for this to work, but this is the best i can do for now. I know some readers are getting even more tired of the seatbelt scenes than I am of writing them, but I have to go at the kids' pace, and it just doesn't feel natural to have them skipping straight from hating it to being okay with it.

*alfred and the babies are up early as usual; bruce didn't sleep well because he kept getting up all night to check on all his children; everyone else is sleeping in late

*he's been trying to convince the kids to come to breakfast; they keep huddling in the entryway and look ready to bolt

"Why don't you want to eat?" Bruce finally asked in exasperation, putting down the box of cereal.

_"No seatbelts!"_ Jack demanded, and Peter growled in agreement.

Bruce set his face in his hand, feeling suddenly exhausted. He hadn't even been thinking about seatbelt practice until that moment, and he'd certainly never intended to associate it with breakfast. "All right, look, I'm going to show you something I've been working on." He went to get his laptop.

The boys were picking at plates of food when he came back, but as soon as they saw him, John ducked under the table, Peter grabbed the closest plastic tableware to use as weapons and stood up on his chair, and Jack ran to stand between Bruce and his brothers like a tiny human shield, yelling, "No no no no NO!"

Bruce sat down on the floor and opened the laptop. Jack chirped in cautious interest and crept a little closer.

"Boys, look. Cars are big, heavy machines that can do a lot of damage to a human being if something goes wrong. Things go wrong many times every day." He had tried to pick photographs that struck a balance between destruction and discretion: lots of mangled, shattered vehicles, but no close-ups of corpses.

"Oh no," Jack said softly.

Peter, who'd approached and was staring over Jack's shoulder, asked, _"What happened?!"_

"The drivers of these cars made a mistake, and the cars hit each other and were destroyed. What do you think happened to the people inside?"

_"...Dead."_

"Some of them, yes, because they were not wearing their seatbelts."

Peter narrowed his eyes and hissed.

Next was a crudely-animated computer simulation, enough to convey the idea without getting gory. "This is what happens when there's an accident and the people are not wearing seatbelts. There's the impact, and then the person gets flung around. Sometimes he goes right through the windshield - the glass breaks, and all those sharp pieces cut him and hurt him. Then he keeps going, and often he lands so hard that he dies."

"Daddy, dat is.... Do nnot llet dem do dat!" Jack cried as Peter touched the crumpled, generically human-shaped form on the screen.

"All right, look. This is what happens when there's an accident and the people are wearing seatbelts. There's the impact...maybe they are a little hurt, but look. They don't go through any windows, they don't hit the ground. They're still alive and protected."

He switched to photos, mostly of people recovering. "This person was not wearing a seatbelt. He is alive, but look how sad and hurt he is. This person _was_ wearing a seatbelt. Her neck was a little sore for a while, but now she is completely recovered and can play with her children, see? This person was _not_ wearing a seatbelt...."

Peter and Jack had a long, twittered conversation, stealing glances at Bruce. John, looking miserable, said nothing, but finally looked at Bruce and signed, _"Elephant."_

"You want me to fetch Elephant?"

John set his hands on the ground and rested his forehead on them. Bruce went to get the stuffed animal, and John snatched it as soon as it was offered. The boy hugged it tightly and squeezed his eyes shut, trembling a little when Bruce picked him up but not resisting. "Just five seconds, Johnny," Bruce whispered to him, his heart aching. "I will _not_ hurt you."

John did not speak or move. Even after he'd been unbuckled again, he continued to sit there hugging Elephant, though he did open his eyes and relax minutely when Bruce took his own turn being buckled in.

_"Daddy tie himself,"_ Jack giggled.

"Whose turn is it next?" Bruce asked.

Peter jumped back, and Jack yelled, "No!"

"All right, well, I'm going to get John's reward, and then maybe you'll have decided by then." He went to the kitchen and then returned to find John still huddled in the car. He offered the choices, and after a moment, John picked a multicolored popsicle. When Bruce had unwrapped it for him, the boy put it into his mouth and tipped to the side. He lay there sucking at the cold sweetness as he continued to clutch Elephant.

"Daddy I wwan't ai ceam!" Jack yelled.

_"Ice cream~!"_ Peter signed.

"If you want ice cream, then put your seatbelt on."

"Nnooo, bu't, bbut Daddy, I, I do nno't wwan't to do da sseatbbe't, an', an' it is ss'cary, Daddy! Hey, llisten to me!!"

"I'm listening," Bruce said as he set the timer for Peter, who had sighed very deeply but finally crawled into place to be buckled.

"Be'ccause it mmake ll'il buh, babies ssad, Daddy, oh no!"

"Oh no," Bruce agreed, pulling a basket of distractions out from under the seat and handing some books to Peter.

"Be'ccause, Daddy, llook, no *_gwah gwah_* ccar be'ccause it be ssafe hh, here in hhouse!"

"This is practice, Jack. If you practice wearing a seatbelt in the garage where it's safe, then you will _also_ be safe when the car is driving on the roads with other cars."

The timer went off. Peter threw the books aside, made wild grabby hands at the cooler, and cheered happily when he was given his treat. To Bruce's surprise and amusement, the boy actually forgot he was still wearing the seatbelt until he'd finished gobbling his ice cream sandwich and tried to get up. He started to scream.

"_Push_, Peter, remember? Right here, this button, push and it will come off."

After some fighting with the buckle, Peter sprang free and scrambled out of the car. He looked around wildly, then glared at Bruce and demanded, _"ICE CREAM."_

"You want another ice cream for wearing the seatbelt longer than you had to?"

_"ICE CREAM."_

"How about chips?"

Peter eyed the offered alternative, then made grabby hands.

"Nnooo, Daddy, it is _nno't_ Jjackie's tturn!!"

"Come here, Jack."

"No, be'ccause, llisten, Daddy, mmaybe, mmaybe I do nno't wuh, wann't ai ceam, bbe'ccause it ccooold, Daddy, oh no, whha't I hhaffa do t' ggetta b'eak 'rroun' hhere, man...!"

The little boy babbled and protested the entire time he had his turn, right up until he was offered his reward, upon which his demeanor abruptly changed and he cheered, "Yyaaayy, ggoo'd jjob, Jackie, ggoo'd jjob!"

"Good job, Jackie," Bruce murmured, watching the child eat his ice cream. He looked at the oldest bird. "John, when are you going to come out of the car?"

_"Every morning, tie birds, good job, ice cream. Every morning."_

"Good job putting words together, but this is 'every morning.' "

_"Every morning,"_ John repeated, using the new sign rather than the ones for 'every' and 'morning.'

"It won't be forever, John, it's just until you can endure the seatbelts during normal car rides. Then we can stop with the practice, when you're able to handle it for real."

_"You tie birds but do not hurt them. Why?"_

"Why do you think, John?"

_"Why?"_ John demanded, narrowing his eyes.

"I don't hurt you because I love you, and because it's wrong to hurt children."

_"Again."_

Bruce briefly closed his eyes. "I love you. It's wrong to hurt people. The Man Who Laughs was wrong to hurt you. I love you and will never hurt you."

_"Give me ice cream."_

"I already did."

_"Sing."_

"I will if you come out of the car."

*i think i kind of meant the following scene, which i wrote a long time ago, to go after a seatbelt session, but it doesn't really work here. i have to either do major repairs on the transition or relocate the scene

*in the living room with the whole family now

"Ii ssssorry I mmmayyyy--"

"Later, John, not now," Bruce said, gently trying to unhook the child's fingers from his shirt.

John simply gripped tighter and started yanking. "II SSORRY I MMAY--"

"All right, _all right_, John, all right." Bruce sighed heavily in defeat and sat down on the couch, resting his arms around John when the boy latched onto him. He hesitated, very deliberately not looking at anyone else in the room, then drew in a breath. _"I'm sorry, dear...so sorry, dear....."_ He ignored the sound of Jason swearing softly in astonishment. _"I'm sorry I made you cry...."_

Other than the initial surprise, Bruce's other children were dead silent throughout the song, their attention riveted. When he reached the end, Dick and Duke cheered; Tim was exclaiming faintly, "What just _happened_?!" and Jason was back to child-friendly swearing.

"What the _heck_, Bruce! What was _that_?! You can sing?!"

Bruce couldn't think of anything to say, so he said nothing and looked stony.

"He used to sing to me when I was little," Dick spoke up. "Maybe he decided I got too old after a while."

"He sings to John every day," Duke added.

"Oh!" Jason yelled in a mixture of playfulness and indignation, "OH, so you'll sing to _Dick_ and the _birds_, but not to me, is that it?"

"Jason--"

"I _knew_ it! You really don't love me as much as them," Jason finished, a huge grin hiding a bit of real hurt.

Bruce sighed internally. He knew exactly what he was about to get himself into, because Jason would absolutely call his bluff if he wasn't sincere, but...it was worth it. After all the ways he had failed his second child, this was something he could give. "Would you like me to sing to you, Jason?" he asked, raising his eyebrows in challenge.

Jason's answering grin was sharp. "I dare you."

"What would you like me to sing?"

"Doesn't matter," Jason said, looking skeptical. "Anything."

"I got it, I got it," Dick said eagerly, shoving his phone at Bruce.

Bruce looked at the sheet music with lyrics he was being presented with. " 'Firework'?" he read from the top. It looked vaguely familiar; he'd probably come across it at some point, either during pop culture research or overhearing one of Dick's playlists.

"Pffft, there's no way," Jason scoffed dismissively. "Bruce is physically incapable of singing Katy Perry even if he had a gun to his head."

Bruce was starting to feel insulted. He actually _wanted_ to prove Jason wrong now.

...It was still difficult to start, but after a pause, he did. _"Do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting--"_

The next bit was drowned out by the boys' laughter, but they soon shushed each other.

_"Do you ever--"_ Bruce abruptly stopped and frowned at the lyrics.

"It's fine," Jason mumbled, waving his hand.

_"...Do you ever feel already buried deep,"_ Bruce resumed, softer now. _"Six feet under screams but no one seems to hear a thing...."_

Everyone listened in total silence as Bruce continued, broken only by a couple of them chuckling quietly when Bruce felt compelled to replace words like 'gotta' with 'have to.'

_"[. . .]."_

Jason turned away, took a Rubik's Cube out of his pocket, and unhurriedly started working at it, his face impassive. Most of his siblings continued to watch Bruce, spellbound.

_"Because, Jason, you're a firework, come on, show us what you're worth...."_

Halfway through, Jason had gone still, face completely turned away, tense muscles belying his casual pose. It was pretty obvious Bat body language for _"Don't look at me until I stop crying,"_ but no one called him out on it, even Damian (though that could have been because Damian was intently preoccupied with his phone).

_"...[. . .]."_

When he finished, his face was warm. Jason still hadn't moved, but the others all burst into cheers. Bruce wasn't quite sure whether it was encouragement for exhibiting vulnerability or genuine approval of his performance.

Damian was now insistently pushing his phone at Bruce. "This one, Father! I want this one."

Bruce stared at the new set of sheet music. He hadn't intended to sing for anyone other than Jason, but it wouldn't be fair if he refused. " 'Tavalodet Mobarak'?"

Damian lifted his chin imperiously. "I've been living with a proper family for three years now, but no one has yet wished me a proper birthday."

"What are you talking about?!" Dick yelped. "I know we screwed up this year, but we threw you parties the other times!"

"I am not faulting the parties. But that _song_, Richard! 'Happy Birthday To You' is a substanceless piece of garbage; I want a _real_ birthday song! Everyone but Pennyworth owes me for my thirteenth birthday, anyway. And I want...." A lull fell as everyone curiously watched the sudden pensive expression on his face. "We went to Tehran once...when I was still with the League, we passed by a birthday celebration. There were so many guests, and everyone looked so happy...."

When it seemed he was not going to continue, Bruce set the phone down. He already knew the tune, and had just now refreshed himself on the words. _"Tavalod, tavalod, tavalodet mobarak!"_

Damian's resulting smile was huge, and made everything worthwhile. Then Jason, who had recovered now that the spotlight was off him, actually joined in. Although his Persian wasn't fluent, he did know most of the song. Dick started to clap in time to the beat, and almost everyone joined in. Even the children, excited by the family's high spirits, began to dance, hopping and spinning.

_"Mobarak, mobarak, tavalodet mobarak!"_ Bruce finished.

"Whoooooo!" everyone shouted, the rhythmic clapping turning to applause.

"_crow_! _crow_!" the birds shouted, for once in excitement rather than fear or anger.

"My turn, my turn, my turn!" Dick finally exclaimed, presenting Bruce with his song request.

Bruce resigned himself to his fate and dutifully sang "*title*" to his eldest, who beamed the entire time, even in the moments when tears shone in his eyes.

"Me," Cassandra said next, proudly. "Any, any."

So Bruce sang her "*title*," and then he turned expectantly to Tim.

Timothy, who had been watching the entire time with great amusement and interest, looked surprised. "Oh - no, I'm fine."

There was a collective outcry. "Oh come ooooooonn, Tim!"

"BRUCE is gonna SING FOR YOU!!!"

"Really, I'm good. It's nice listening to all of them, I don't need one for myself."

"Don't you _want_ one for yourself?"

"Even if I did, I can't think of any songs!"

Dick thrust his phone at Bruce. "Sing this for Timmy."

Bruce scanned quickly over the lyrics and approved. _"*lyrics*...."_

Tim's don't-look-at-me-cry pose was more subtle than Jason's, at least at first. By the end of it, he was fighting back tears in Bruce's arms (not very successfully), with Jack patting his head and Jason sitting supportively nearby, as Dick and Damian argued about respect for people's feelings.

"_You'd_ be crying, too, if you were in his place!"

"I've experienced _far_ worse trauma than him and I am perfectly capable of keeping my composure!"

"If I had an entire day to list everything wrong with that sentence--"

"Hey," Duke interrupted, "Tim's not crying anymore, and it's my turn."

Tim was, in fact, looking very fed up *idk what to write here*

Bruce looked at the new song selection and sighed.

"What?" Duke teased, "I'm not your real kid, so I don't get a song? Ohhhh, I see how it is."

Bruce raised an eyebrow and started to sing, doing his best to make the piece sound remotely musical. Duke laughed and settled back to listen in appreciation.

*except i decided after initially drafting this to avoid heavy metal so now what do i doooo for duke's song....*

Almost as soon as the song ended, Bruce looked up, at last acknowledging the last member of his family, who had been listening in the doorway for quite a while. Bruce didn't even have to ask. _"J'attendrai le jour et la nuit...."_ _So_ much easier to sing than the nonsense his children had been tormenting him with.

Alfred smiled and came to sit on a couch. They watched each other as Bruce sang, Alfred occasionally mouthing the words, both of them remembering faraway, golden days when Martha Wayne had once sung for her family.

_"[. . .]"_ It was a song traditionally associated with lovers separated by war, but for Alfred, they now held a different significance. This had been the cry of his heart during all those long, lonely years when his son had been on the other side of the world, when Alfred had not known whether he was dead or alive or if he'd ever see him again.

_"Et pourtant j'attendrai ton retour."_

The song came to a close. Bruce's entire family was quiet, relaxed and heavy-lidded like they were drugged.

Alfred finally murmured, "It is certainly good to hear you sing, my boy."

Bruce couldn't even remember now why he'd been so adamant to keep his music to himself all these years. He _enjoyed_ singing for his family. And they enjoyed being sung to - not a single one of them had left the room, as they would certainly have done if they'd had enough.

"For my next birthday," Dick said dreamily, "I want Dad to sing to me in front of aaaaall my friends."

Bruce still had limits. "No."

xXx

**Credits:**

**"I'm Sorry I Made You Cry" by Frank Sinatra**

**"Firework" by Katy Perry**

**"Tavalodet Mobarak" by Anoushiravan Rohani**

**"J'attendrai," lyrics by Louis Poterat**

o.o.o

Author's notes: I hate how Rebirth handled Damian's thirteenth birthday and I don't accept it for my headcanon, at least Dick forgetting and Bruce being so unapologetic about what a jerk he was. I might adjust this scene a bit if I ever get around to editing it, but I don't have time right now to decide exactly which elements of Damian's thirteenth birthday I'm accepting and which I'm rejecting.

"Farsi" is the Persian word for the language of Iran. So _technically_, if you're speaking English and referring to the language of Iran, you'd call it "Persian," not "Farsi." You'd only use "Farsi" if you're speaking Persian. But whatever; I've heard that Iranians in general prefer to call the language "Farsi" even in English, but the ones I know personally don't give a flip either way. Oh, but since I'm discussing this anyway, Iran (and Iraq) is pronounced "EE-_RAHN_" (and "EE-_ROCK_") **not** "I RAN" (and "I RACK"). It bugs me so much when people get it wrong, and makes me so happy the very few times people get it right. (And exasperates me when they get it half-right. X''D) (Ftr, I barely know any Persian and I definitely cannot read the script. There are many Persian words I've known for many years, but never knew how they were spelled until I looked them up for fanfiction research. Even the Iranians of my acquaintance don't know how to spell Persian words with the English alphabet. XD)

**Breezy was an immense help in suggesting songs for the other kids, but I still haven't gotten my act together enough to sort through them. X'D If anyone has any additional song suggestions in the meantime, feel free to mention them!**


	4. SRD: Removing the mask scars / birds are now official

_The Birds Who Smile_, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Super rough draft: Removing the mask scars / birds are now official

*oh, wait, earlier that day:

"Boys, today we are going to remove these mask scars." Both John and Peter shied away from his hand when he tried to indicate what he was talking about, so he pointed to his own face. "Around your eyes here, there are scars, and we have to take them off so that Dick and Jason will be safe. All right?"

*transition

*That afternoon?,* Bruce took the children to the Watchtower, the older boys to undergo a procedure and the youngest simply to keep them company. Jack's facial scarring was minimal and formed no particular shape, but it had been a high priority for a while to get John's and Peter's mask scars removed. It would be easiest and safest to use the same equipment the Bats always used to get rid of their most incriminating scars, particularly on their faces. Overuse had some unpleasant side effects and took a toll on the body, but the birds' mask scars were shallow and a single use of the equipment on a relatively small percentage of skin would do them no harm.

Bruce had not been at all prepared for any emotional harm. As soon as they stepped out of the Zeta Tube, John took one look at the view of space and started screaming.

"John!"

*oh, wait, i forgot that in my version, bwl had already killed the justice league before he captured john. hmm....... _if_ i go with the more canon version, john has a panic attack and no one, including the younger birds, has any idea why until he starts scream-twittering about people dying, bruce makes the kids translate, and finally realizes that bwl had made john help kill the justice league on the watchtower. but I don't want to mess with the awful prequel any more than i have to, so i'll probably just stick with the more low-key version even though it's less interesting to write.... #writingisafunchallenge

a single use of the equipment on a relatively small percentage of skin would do them no harm.

Bruce, wearing a mask and nondescript black clothing, stepped out of the Zeta Tube with three little hands securely tucked into his and a bag of toys hanging over his shoulder. Peter, unhappy at the noise and brightness of the quick journey, dramatically flung himself out of Bruce's loosened grip, then crowed in surprise at the view from the window-wall of Earth floating in a sea of stars. The children made a beeline for the transparent wall and pressed against it, twittering curiously.

"We are in space right now," Bruce explained, stepping up beside them. "This is the Watchtower, where I come to work sometimes. That is Planet Earth. The Justice League works hard to keep it safe."

He waited until the children had had their fill of staring and then exploring a bit. He got them set up with the toys in what was technically a cell in the brig, though the little room was so clean and futuristic that the boys thankfully didn't seem to recognize it as such, especially since the holograms in the walls were already set up with a peaceful view of a flowery mountain meadow. None of the children noticed the gentle whoosh of the door closing them in. They continued to act out an elaborate story with their action figures and animals as the air coming into the cell started being laced with carefully measured gas.

They didn't seem to register anything odd when they got sleepy, either. The older boys dragged blankets into a corner to make a nest, and Peter offered to stand watch as the other two curled around him. He gazed sleepily at the hologram meadow for a while, then eventually leaned back against the wall.

When all three boys were fast asleep, Bruce opened the cell again. He gently loaded them into a blanket-filled supply transport and moved them up to the medical bay.

The procedures themselves were uneventful. First John and then Peter were laid in the machine and strapped down so they wouldn't move in their sleep. When Bruce noticed them frowning, perhaps subconscious sensing the restraints, he asked J'onn to soothe their dreams, and each boy's face soon smoothed out again.

Bruce, well-practiced by now, stared at the main screen, moving his hand to manipulate the specialized lasers. Collagen was slowly repaired, discoloration was altered to match its surroundings. Bruce applied the medication afterward that would protect the sensitive new skin, bandaged the boys' faces, and carried them back to the transporter nest.

Once Peter was finished, Bruce stepped back and exhaled in relief. He knew how traumatic even such a simple procedure would probably be for his poor birds, so he was glad they had remained unconscious the whole time. He moved them into a dimly lit room with soft music playing and left them to awaken when they were ready.

*when they wake up, they really don't like the bandages because it reminds them of the domino masks, but grudgingly stop picking at them when Jack, not wanting to be left out, asks for facial bandages, too

xXx

*i don't know how to write it in real time, but the kids are legal people now. they are officially classified as permanent refugees from another planet or universe (kori falls into this category, for example) and also as clones / au counterparts / etc. of dick, jason, & tim (kon would fall into this category if he didn't have a secret identity). since they are orphaned minors and their prime beings are adults, the older boys are, by default, the sons of their prime beings. tim, as an emancipated minor, is an unprecedented case, and also falls into the small age range of teenagers who can choose whether their counterparts will be designated their sibling or their child. tim chooses to make jack his brother instead of his son.

xXx

Now that the children had _finally_ been more-or-less convinced that Bruce was not their abuser, he dared to bring in social services directly. The delay might have ordinarily worked against him, but CPS had been just as overwhelmed by the Batpocalypse as the rest of the city had, and had been slower to recover. The birds, who were safe and cared-for, had been low on the priority list for as long as Bruce wanted them to be; there was a city full of displaced children who'd needed more urgent help.

Finally, however, an appointment was made and a social worker came out to the manor. *gaaahhh, this is hard to write; Bruce goes over what to say and what not to say with the kids and researches cole, who's fresh out of college. cole arrives and alfred greets him at the door, kids are playing in the living room and bruce is anxious

"Wow, Mr. Wayne, hi!" Cole said, shaking his hand.

"Hello."

"Wow, this house is amazing! You could fit a hundred kids in here," the man laughed.

"Am I allowed a hundred?" Bruce tried to joke, and Cole burst into more laughter.

"All right, cool, so where're the kiddos?"

"They're in the living room, this way."

Bruce was horrified to walk in and find John buck naked, the three boys playing with cars and action figures as if nothing was amiss. "JOHN!!"

That was a mistake as well. John flinched violently and Peter fled to the closest hiding spot.

_"No Daddy don't be mad, don't be mad!"_ Jack pleaded with both his voice and his hands as he backed away.

Bruce took a deep breath, trying to calm down as he grabbed John's clothes from the floor where they'd been discarded (thank God they were still in the room, at least, indicating that the boy _had_ been wearing them recently). "I'm not angry. I'm not angry, it's all right; Johnny, let's get you dressed...."

John was whimpering and shaking, staring at Bruce's face as he submitted to being dressed. "Mmma'dd," he whispered.

"No. No, chum, I'm not mad. I just need you to keep your clothes on, all right? Look, we have a visitor. This is Mr. Sullivan, the one I told you about."

To his relief, Cole didn't look disapproving of Bruce's parenting fail. He stooped to shake John's hand and cooed, "Hi, Johnny, my name is Cole! What was wrong with your clothes, buddy? Were they itchy?"

John stared at him.

"Jjohnny ssay Daddy ppu't cc'oes on, bu't Bbad Llaugh Man ffow dem _awway_!" Jack announced loudly. He pointed. "Is Daddy, ssee?"

"Awwww, aren't you a cutie! You guys wouldn't hurt a fly, would you; and they told me you ate people!" Cole laughed, as if the very idea was ridiculous. Bruce was glad the man didn't understand when Peter signed, _"No more eat people"_ from where he was peeking around the couch.

"You can probably already tell," Bruce said, "but this is John, the oldest, and the youngest is Jack. That's Peter over there. Peter, please come out here and say hello to Mr. Sullivan."

_"You are not angry?"_

"No, I'm not."

_"Yell!"_

"I yelled because I was surprised and dismayed, not angry. But John is wearing clothes now, so everything is all right. You're safe, Peter."

Peter came to a decision and scampered out, shyly circling around Cole and coming to a stop behind Jack.

"Hi, Peter! Wooww, you're cute, too!"

Peter tilted his head in confusion, then pointed to Jack. _"He is cute."_

"All of you are cute," Bruce said.

"Yup, that's right!" Cole agreed. "You guys are my very first kiddos ever! I'm so happy to meet you!"

Bruce raised an eyebrow at the frank admission of inexperience. It worked in his favor here, but Cole really was green if he hadn't realized that would be an unwise comment. "Recent hire?" he asked, already knowing the answer but having to play dumb.

"Yup! I'd applied for this job before the apocalypse, didn't get it at first but now they need more people. I just finished training this morning, in fact!"

"I see," Bruce said politely, trying to hide a smile.

*cole talks to the kids and the rest of the family, looks over the house, and cheerfully makes bruce the kids' temporary guardian. now bruce needs to start scheduling stuff and looking into schools

*here's how it all eventually shakes out: dick retains his parental rights, but names bruce as john's guardian and leaves the brunt of the childrearing to him. jason refused to give bruce guardianship, but he does informally let bruce raise peter, and bruce is legally allowed to make medical and educational decisions for peter. bruce formally adopts jack, whose legal name is now Jack Thomas Drake-Wayne.

xXx

Bruce must have fallen asleep *while doing WE work on his laptop as the kids play in the living room*, because he started awake at Alfred's voice exclaiming sharply, "Master John!"

He found the butler and the boy in a standoff, Alfred on one side of the couch holding a pair of pants, John naked on the other side of the couch, eyes and body clearly indicating that he'd keep the couch between them no matter which direction Alfred tried. Peter and Jack were watching solemnly.

"John, what are you _doing_?" Bruce said in exasperation, getting up. He approached with the intention of helping Alfred corner his quarry, but John backed away, giving up his tactical advantage. He watched Bruce intently and came up against the wall.

"John," Bruce said cautiously, holding the shirt he'd scooped up on the way. "You can be naked in your own bedroom or in any bathroom, but when you're in this part of the house, you need to wear clothes." John did not speak or move. Bruce, feeling helpless, made a half-hearted gesture with the shirt in John's direction, and was surprised when the boy cooperatively raised his arms. Once the shirt was on, Bruce reached back and Alfred set the rest of the outfit into his hand. He knelt, and John raised one foot, then the other, lightly resting his hands on Bruce to steady himself as Bruce struggled to get the rest of his clothes on.

Now dressed again, John shrank back against the wall, still staring at Bruce.

"All right. Keep your clothes on when you're out here, John."

"...."

"Do you understand?"

"Yysss."

"All right. Do you want to go outside and play?"

_"Yes!"_

"All right, let's go."

*some night in the cave

Bruce frowned when he heard Jason yelling, "Come back here and put your pants on, you little exhibitionist!" He turned away from the Batcomputer and found Jason chasing around John, who was naked _again_.

Bruce sighed and got up. "Let me try," he said, holding out his hand for the clothes.

"Does he do this often?" Jason complained, handing them over.

"He didn't used to, but it's started being a problem recently."

He approached, and John shrank away but didn't run. Bruce held out the clothes. "Get dressed, John. I told you that you need to wear clothes when you're outside your room."

John looked at the clothes, then at Bruce. He took a large step back in clear refusal.

Bruce tensed in anticipation of a fight that could so easily go very wrong. He picked the closest garment, which happened to be the shirt, and ordered in his Batman voice, "Raise your arms." He was already wondering what in the world he would do when John inevitably disobeyed, but to his surprise, John lifted his arms, not even looking frightened. Just as before, the child submitted willingly to being dressed.

"You don't want to dress yourself," Bruce realized slowly. "You don't want other people to dress you. You want to be dressed by me."

John wandered off, but Bruce stared after him for a while, thinking.

*except now the following scene, which I wrote a long time ago, doesn't work as well...

*over the next day or so, john keeps randomly pulling all his clothes off; adults will get busy for just a few minutes, then turn back and bam, naked nine-year-old. (though wouldn't they start dressing him in, like, one-piece outfits that'd be harder for him to take off??) john doesn't seem to be bothered at all, readily submits to being re-dressed by bruce, but avoids anyone else who tries to put his clothes on; stays silent when people are like "_Why_???"

John wouldn't let go of him, so he backed up until he could sit down on the couch. John curled up in his lap and snuggled even more closely into him.

"John, I need you to explain to me what's going on, why you keep doing this."

"Nno. Hhhug."

"I'll keep holding you, don't worry. Let go for just a minute so you can talk to me."

John simply tucked his face even more firmly into Bruce's neck and tightened his arms.

Bruce sighed and held him for a long time, until John's hug finally started to loosen. "John. Don't fall asleep. I need to ask you some questions."

John gazed up at him through half-lidded eyes.

"Why do you keep doing this? Why do you keep undressing in the middle of the house, for no reason? You didn't used to do this before."

_"You put clothes on me, I feel safe."_

"By putting your--?" Bruce paused. "Do you...keep taking all your clothes off so that I'll put them back on you?"

_"Yes."_

Bruce swallowed. "...Tell me what he did to you, John."

_"No. It hurts you."_

Which was true, but he couldn't let John just keep repressing it, or whatever was happening by avoiding the topic. "_You_ need to talk about it, so I will listen to anything you say."

_"No. I talk to family, not you. It hurts you."_

Bruce closed his eyes and rested his face against John's hair for a moment. "John...I hope you know how much I love you." He sensed John signing, so he raised his head again.

_"He said he loved me, too, but I know he lied because he hurt me."_ Tears stung Bruce's eyes, but John wasn't finished. _"But you say you love me, I know it's true, because you are nice. I like nice you."_

Bruce held his boy tightly. He wished so much that he could protect John from his own past, but that wasn't possible. What he could protect his son from was the future, and he intended to keep doing that with everything in his power.

xXx

Author's notes: I have long headcanoned that the Bats use some sort of technology to tone down their scarring, because my _goodness_. There's no way they would still have such pretty, unblemished faces after some of the hits they've taken in canon.

The first OC I created to be the birds' social worker was way _too_ good at her job: she figured out that the Waynes are the Bats, freaked out, and took all three birds, Damian, and Duke out of Bruce's custody on grounds of child endangerment. X''D (Would have taken Tim, too, if he wasn't emancipated.) So I was like "NOPE, THAT AIN'T GONNA WORK" and tried again. This time I came up with a guy, unnamed at first, who loves kids and is very empathetic, but is also not the sharpest tool in the shed and is extremely inexperienced to boot. He ended up debuting in the "General Foster Care" alternate route before he appeared in the main story. X'D ("Cole" was originally Darcy the lawyer's name, but I totally forgot that when I wrote the lawyer scene. I came up with the name "Darcy" for the lawyer, and only later found the name "Cole" in my notes, so I recycled it for the social worker.

Speaking of lawyers, I'm still really unhappy with how I wrote them in this fic because I'm so freaking ignorant about the profession that I know I must have made a million mistakes, but I don't even know what they are. I did my best to research, but I couldn't find a lot of what I needed, and I also couldn't find anyone who was willing to answer my questions. It just now occurred to me how to better research my questions, so I'll try to do that at some point and edit That Chapter yet again to hopefully be...a little less wildly inaccurate....

Oh, and the next chapter of _Gifts From the Sea_ is coming. I've been having a lot of trouble, but I did make some good progress on it today.


	5. SRD: Seatbelt training (going around the front drive) / Making appointments and starting school montage / Jack's puppy eyes

_The Birds Who Smile_, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Super rough draft: Seatbelt training (going around the front drive) / Making appointments and starting school montage / Jack's puppy eyes

Bruce didn't even try to tempt the kids with breakfast first; all four of them just wanted to get seatbelts out of the way.

This time, he asked Alfred to drive them around the manor's long front drive. Peter and Jack were so interested in the view out the windows that Bruce actually set the timer to count up rather than down, and they lasted nearly an entire circuit of the front grounds without noticing they were still buckled. With John, Bruce was more cautious, sticking to just a few seconds with the seatbelt buckled and giving the boy a colorful liquid timer to occupy him during the rest of the ride. John clutched the toy hard and desperately stared at it, Elephant squeezed under his arm.

Jack was the one who first noticed they were still restrained after several minutes, and protested with a loud, "HEY, WWASSA BBI'CKG I'DDEA, HUH?!"

"Are you watching too much TV?" Bruce wondered as they came to a stop in front of the house and he unbuckled Peter (Jack was already unbuckling himself). The youngest bird had lately been using more uncharacteristic phrases he had to have picked up from elsewhere. "Or are you watching YouTube videos when you're supposed to be sleeping?" The child's phone wasn't supposed to have Internet access, but the kid was Tim Drake; Bruce wouldn't put it past him to have somehow figured out how to get online.

"Ttimuh go dd_own_, Daddy!" Jack complained, kicking at his father when Bruce tried to hand him ice cream.

"I'm sorry, Jack. I just wanted to see how long you'd last." He abruptly pulled the ice cream back before Jack could grasp it. "I'll give you this when you stop kicking me."

"AI CEAM!!"

"Stop kicking, then you will get ice cream."

Jack paused and narrowed his eyes in a very calculating look that sort of gave Bruce chills. Peter had gone stiff and wide-eyed as he read his brother's body language, creeping out of the door when Alfred opened it but unable to tear his eyes away from his youngest brother. John started biting Elephant and stared even harder at the liquid timer, which he didn't turn even though the top half was now empty.

Jack's face cleared. Very deliberately, he said, "You ss'_tuppid_, BBatman," and delivered quite a hard kick to Bruce's shin, then immediately cringed back, his expression a mix of rebellion and fear.

Bruce put the ice cream back in the cooler. "You'll get this later. Apparently you're not ready yet."

There was a pause. John's breath was coming a little hard, and Peter pressed against Alfred.

_"STUPID BATMAN!"_ Jack signed fiercely, his face twisting. _"I HATE YOU! YOU ARE BAD!"_

"Don't call me 'Batman.' You can call me 'B' or 'Bruce.' "

Jack panted for a moment, then flipped Bruce off. His weak manual dexterity meant he had to use his other hand to correctly arrange his tiny little fingers, and the effect was more adorably ridiculous than obscene.

"Ffuck you! No ai ceam ffor Jjackie!"

"Ice cream later. You earned it for wearing your seatbelt, but it will be delayed until you behave." Bruce got out of the car and started to help John out.

Jack screamed and attacked Bruce, who fended him off and then tried to put some distance between them. Jack scrambled after him, but before his clawed hands could connect, Bruce caught his wrists and crouched down to his level. Jack immediately started pulling to get away, looking terrified.

"Ssorry ssorry Jjackie ssorry no no do not hhuht li'l bbaby--"

"Jack--"

"_crow_! _crow_!"

"Are you trying to make me lose my temper on purpose?"

Jack's struggling had changed from trying to get away to trying to get snuggly, but the way Bruce was holding him kept him anchored either way.

"Timothy Jackson, your brother John already did his worst. I didn't turn into the Man Who Laughs for him, and I certainly won't for you."

"Lle't-- GGO...!"

Bruce let go, and Jack backed away fearfully. Not knowing what else to do, Bruce went to give the older boys their rewards.

Jack started to cry, standing there bawling with his hands hanging at his sides. The older boys cautiously approached, John twittering softly and Peter, whose mouth was still full of ice cream, reaching out to grasp his hand. Bruce leaned against the car and waited.

After a while, the sobs died away and Jack miserably let his brothers pull him toward the house, but he stopped when they came even with the car. He trudged over to Bruce and gazed up at him silently with those glistening baby blue eyes of his, face stained with tears and a trickle of snot making its way down his lip.

Bruce's heart melted, and he took out a handkerchief to wipe his baby bird's face. "Are you ready for your ice cream now?" he murmured.

_"No ice cream for bad boy."_

"You wore your seatbelt, so you earned your ice cream. You should probably apologize for kicking, though."

_"Sorry...very sorry, I hate bad boy--"_

"You're a good boy," Bruce said firmly, cupping his face. "I love you, Jack. All right?"

Jack studied him a minute. _"You love bad boys?"_

"I love _my_ boys, whether they're bad or good, and you're my boy, so I love you."

Once they all got inside, he put on a video, and as soon as he sat down, Jack curled up in his lap and clung to him. Peter giggled and cuddled into his side, and John climbed up the back of the couch to perch on his shoulders.

*hopefully this is the last one and they get a therapist very soon after this who points out that bruce should have trained them in relaxation techniques first (unless he just doesn't tell them about the seatbelt issue. but the kids would probably mention it during therapy sessions)

*before I realized that, there was going to be a scene......later on where bruce starts to teach john relaxation techniques as a strategy for....a certain thing that's a spoiler, and he has a giant Facepalm Moment when he realizes he should have taught it to them for the seatbelt thing

xXx

*now that john's no longer trying to kill bruce and the kids' documentation is finally in order (i don't know if this will stay a montage or get expanded into real time in the final draft):

Bruce had...quite a few reservations about trusting mental health professionals with his youngest, most vulnerable children, so he procrastinated by starting with a speech therapist, an ASL instructor, and a general education tutor. He waited a few weeks to make sure the boys did well with them, which they did. (At least, Peter and Jack did. John would cooperate on some days, but then do...the opposite of cooperation on others.)

After some experimentation, they found that it worked best for the tutor to start the day with some warm-up activities, the speech therapist to work with the kids for an hour, the tutor to teach the day's lessons before lunch, and the ASL instructor to work with the kids while they did homework after lunch. It kept the children occupied all day, and the younger boys seemed pretty happy with it.

"John," Bruce asked on a bad day, "why are you upset?"

_"Bored!"_

"What do you want to be doing instead?"

_"I want SMALL people! No more big people!!"_

"...You want to talk to children your own age."

_"Big people say 'Do that do that do that,' I say NO. Tired. Hungry."_

"You're hungry?"

John gave him an annoyed look as if Bruce had missed the point.

"All right, Johnny. I'll see if I can find a class to enroll you in."

The Wayne Foundation was still preoccupied dealing with fallout from the Batpocalypse, but Bruce was able to persuade them to restart some of the extracurricular programs that they'd been running before Barbatos. Bruce signed up John for a gymnastics class and a music class, so twice a week, the boy was taken into town. The younger children at first clamored to go, too, but Jack hated both classes and gave up after just a week and a half. Peter got frustrated with gymnastics but was happier with flag football, then got sucked into a book club, so that made three trips into town a week. Bruce carefully monitored their progress until they seemed to be ready for school.

Although the public schools were more-or-less functioning again, Gotham Academy and the other elite private schools were taking their time rebuilding and still educating students via the Internet rather than on campus. Very few specialized schools had recovered yet, either, which meant that, at least for the time being, Bruce had to trust his kids with the public school special education program.

It was difficult to find a good fit for the boys. John and Peter were initially placed in the Adapted Learning class, but it did nothing for them on an academic level. The school was short-staffed and didn't have an assistant to spare to accompany Jack into a gen ed class, so Bruce repurposed the boys' tutor. Then John frightened an administrator enough to prompt her to transfer him to the behavior unit, but that classroom was also short-staffed and John kept wandering out to find his brothers whenever one of the other students had an episode and stole all the teacher's attention.

Then Peter started getting in trouble, though it turned out that was because he kept coming to the defense of Jack, who was apparently being bullied during lunch and recess when his tutor wasn't there to bodyguard him. Jack started refusing to go to school altogether, and Peter was becoming more and more violent in addition to learning basically nothing outside of the books he read for fun, so Bruce gave up and had the younger boys homeschooled again, hiring a second tutor to work with John in gen ed. That seemed to work out best, since John was actually learning now while still being socialized with peers and didn't have to worry about his baby brothers, who both seemed happier learning quietly at home at their own pace.

Meanwhile, Bruce had finally found a therapist he reluctantly decided to half-trust. Even if his OCD hadn't compelled him to spy on her sessions with the children, he still would have, anyway - after Harley Quinn, Dr. Strange, and basically every other mental health professional he knew of, there was no way he was going to let one stay alone with his battered little ones.

The first session was simple enough: she had them drawing pictures. John lay on the floor and languidly colored an entire page solid blue. Peter drew a picture of Titus and then another one of the Batman Who Laughs lying in a pool of blood with a giant rock and about thirty swords and arrows raining down on him. Jack impatiently threw down the crayon after about three seconds and started taking photographs instead, proudly choosing as the best one an image of his own foot pressed against Peter's.

John, when asked about his artwork, would only say that it made him happy. Peter gushed about how great Titus was for fifteen minutes and then, when *the therapist* finally managed to switch his attention to the other drawing, pressed his middle finger against the depiction of his abuser. Jack rambled half-intelligibly about his photo, something about warm and safe and together.

xXx

*fam's hanging out in the living room or something, jack's in bruce's lap on the couch

"Maybe tomorrow, Jack, all right?"

Jack turned his face up to Bruce, shoulders slumped, big blue-and-gold eyes shimmering, little mouth just a tiny bit downturned. ["But...Daddy...it is important, okay? Please, Daddy...."]

Bruce's heart was twisting, but he forced himself to hold firm. "Tomorrow. All right, Jack? Tomorrow we will go *do the thing*."

Jack said nothing, but after a pause, he gradually faceplanted into Bruce's chest, and Bruce automatically put his arms around the child. Another pause later, Jack made one of his sad kitten noises. Then another.

Bruce couldn't _stand_ it. "Tell you what, if you do another *school assignment??* and score _at least_ 90%--" The rest of the bargain was drowned out by everyone's laughter.

Jack, focused only on his father, shifted his face to look at Bruce again and gave a tentative, hopeful smile. ["Jackie is a good boy, we *do the thing*?"]

"_If_ you score at least 90%, then yes."

Jack straightened up a bit, patted Bruce's chest, and said gently, ["You are a good daddy."] Bruce's heart violently finished melting.

"Oh, Bruce, come ON!" Tim burst out. "He's playing you like a _harp_, can you seriously not see that?!"

"I'm not just _giving_ him what he wants. We made a bargain," Bruce said defensively.

"You'll do _anything_ if a kid bats their eyes at you just right."

"Don't tip him off," Dick called across the room.

"Doesn't matter. Watch." Tim hoisted himself up to perch on the back of the couch beside Bruce. It was a childish move that emphasized how young he still was. "Dad?"

"Yes?" Bruce said warily, trying to fight the glow in his heart with the fact that Tim _obviously_ had ulterior motives for calling him 'Dad.'

"So...." Tim dropped his head, fiddling with a seam on the couch. "I know that, like, you just promised to take Jackie this afternoon and all, but I'd been hoping--" He hesitated, then exhaled and slithered down until he was cuddled right into Bruce's side. "Never mind," he mumbled, turning his face into Bruce's arm. "It's not important."

Bruce stared, aware of the gleeful gazes of his watching family. He tried to wait it out, but Tim didn't waver, continuing to lean against him, even getting caught up in a thumb war with the giggling Jack. "Tim," he finally said, "whatever it is, you're not getting it, just tell me what you were going to say."

"It wasn't really anything," Tim shrugged. The shirt he was wearing just happened to be big enough that it slipped to the side, baring vulnerable skin between his neck and shoulder.

Bruce stared. It _had_ to have been deliberate, but he'd been _watching_, and the gesture had looked so _natural_. Just that one small detail made Tim look even younger, especially combined with his vaguely hunched shoulders and effortlessly boneless pose. "...Just say it, and then I'll tell you no."

Tim sighed and shifted away from Bruce, looking very alone now that he wasn't making physical contact with anyone. He'd folded his legs up, knees high, hands casually curled between his feet, shoulders curved and head bowed so that his body formed an almost egg-like shape, still so _small_ even at his age. "I can do it on my own," he mumbled. "The notes I've been working on for the * case. I wondered if you could take a look at it today, give me some pointers, but it can wait...maybe tomorrow, I guess; I'll just do my best in the meantime and hope it's good enough...."

"Tim, that's not even a big favor; I would be _happy_ to look over the case with you."

The others were making noises in the background, but Bruce was distracted by the tremulous hope on his son's face when Tim raised his head. "Now?"

"Well, not right this minute, but maybe in an hour or two--"

He was not prepared for a sly grin to split Tim's face and the forlorn body language to shift into something victoriously catlike, legs now casually stretched out and arm resting along the back of the couch. "You mean _right_ around the time you promised your six-year-old to *do the thing*?" Tim drawled, smirking.

Bruce's face suddenly felt flooded with heat. "Wait--" The rest of the family was _howling_ with laughter by now, Jason actually rolling on the floor in tears as an alarmed Peter shook his shoulder.

["What is funny??"] Jack yelled.

"Awww, Timmy," Dick crooned, going over to wrap his arms around Tim, "I'll be _happy_ to help you out since Dad will be busy."

"I don't need help, I was just proving a point," Tim snorted, trying to swat him away.

"Regardless, you will surely benefit from another's input," Damian announced, pausing beside the couch. "Show me your work, Timothy, and I will show you how to improve it."

"What?! No! I don't _want_ help!"

"C'mon, Timbo," Jason said, scooping his brother into his arms and carrying him off.

"What the heck! Put me _down_, I was making fun of Bruce and Jack, I'm not _actually_ cute! JASON TODD! Cass, Duke, help!"

"Worked," Cass called after them.

"Too well," Duke laughed.

Bruce looked at Alfred pleadingly. "I don't let my children walk all over me, do I?"

"*ahem* I have some work to do in the kitchen. Please excuse me, Master Bruce."

"Alfred!!"

xXx

Author's notes: I've always had strong but vague reasons for not wanting to write therapists, but Ionaperidot pointed out yet another reason Bruce would be reluctant to trust them: Gotham City has an abysmal track record when it comes to mental health professionals.

I haven't read "Heroes in Crisis" yet, though I might fairly soon since my library finally ordered it. I hate Tom King, so I won't be using that awful storyline (although I haven't read it yet, I've seen summaries), but I'm debating whether to use a more tranquil, effective version of Sanctuary instead of trusting a therapist with no ties to superheroes to handle the birds. Also, even though I hate King's writing in general, Bruce having OCD would...explain some things. Also makes him even more relatable for me, haha....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The part about therapy is not going to be in the main story. I only wrote it in the first place because I liked the idea of John coloring an entire page blue so much, but in hindsight, it ought to go in the deleted scenes rather than the main story.


	6. SRD: Kidnapping rescues and John-centric aftermath

_The Birds Who Smile_, a Batman fanfic by Raberba girl

Super rough draft: Kidnapping rescues and John-centric aftermath

A/N: TBWS is still on hold until I finish _Gifts From the Sea_, and I'd intended to wait to post this sequence until I'd finished some other scenes that happen sooner chronologically. However, I've been working on _[Shelter]_ and there's something in the next chapter that I didn't want to post until after I'd posted this, so. X'D

**TRIGGER WARNINGS apply to the first scene. They're spoilery, so I put them at the end of this update.**

**Warnings for the other scenes are just canon- and trope-typical stuff (kidnapping and...PTSD, maybe??).**

o.o.o

_This_ was the reason [throwaway minion] had volunteered to take one of the hostages all by himself. This deserted stretch of road where he could do what he needed to do in peace, where no one would hear if the kid screamed.

He drove across a field until he reached the woods, edging the car in as far as he could until he was pretty sure it wasn't visible from the road. He got out and went around to the trunk.

The kid was conscious, but still groggy from the drugs, his efforts to struggle weak and unfocused. Easy as pie to drag him out and lay him down at the base of a tree, to slip a cord under the bonds that were already there and tie it around the trunk, keeping the kid's arms up and out of the way. He ripped off the gag, laughing at the child's scream of pain. "Yell all you want, ain't no one gonna hear you. You're gonna have a better use for your mouth in a minute."

He'd cut the ankle bindings later, when he'd taken the edge off; for now, he was desperate to just _start_. The sensation of a small, fresh, helpless body beneath his was driving him crazy, he didn't even bother to straighten up as he reached to unfasten his pants.

o.o.o

*red robin hiking through the woods; figures out that the persistent bird call is actually peter's*

The woods were _loud_, mostly with birdsong. [A pair of birds calling to reassure each other, a flock of birds merrily celebrating the feast they'd found in the leaves, a territorial warning cry, and a grackle that sounded like it was having a really bad day. "Bad sign that he'd have left the road, no good reason to leave the road; Peter, where are you...?"

Red Robin suddenly came up short, honing in on the most irritating and persistent of the bird calls. Come to think of it, he knew three human-shaped birds who were having a really, _really_ bad day. "Peter!" He broke into a run.]

Following the sound of the distressed cries, he soon saw a dark shape lying at the base of a tree. He put on a burst of speed until he reached the site, then tried not to throw up.

Peter was lying on the ground, soaked with blood and filth, his hands bound together and tied above his head. He stared up at his brother in fear and anguish, his cries finally ceasing. He was pinned beneath the body of a man who was naked from the waist down, pants pooled around the ankles. A scan with the mask's analytical program suggested that the man had been dead for about half an hour.

Red Robin forced back his nausea and crouched to heave the corpse away. Ordinarily, he would have checked for a pulse and attempted resuscitation, but he was not feeling favorably inclined toward a person who had kidnapped and possibly raped his baby brother. "Peter...."

The boy was crying, attempting to speak but unable to form intelligible words. He screamed when he saw the blade in Red Robin's hand.

"I'm not going to hurt you, I'm not going to hurt you, I promise! This is for the zip-ties. Peter, it's me, it's Tim." He took off his mask. "I'm your brother. I'd never hurt you."

"_crow_! Nn...nnnnoo! _crow_!"

"Peter, please." He tried moving back and setting the knife down and looking around casually. Peter quieted, staring at him. Tim stole sideways glances at him and used the opportunity to put his mask back on and do a basic medical scan. There were no broken bones or other major injuries, and most, if not all, of the blood seemed to be the kidnapper's.

"You're so brave, Peter," Tim said softly. Judging by the shape of the stains, the dried blood that the boy was covered with had originated at his mouth and streamed down his body; the man's probable cause of death was bleeding out from the injury in his neck. Peter had literally bitten a chunk out of his jugular. "I don't know if I could have saved myself the way you did if I was in your position."

"_crow_...."

Tim risked edging closer. "Peter," he said softly, "if you don't let me help you, how are you going to get free?"

Peter whimpered and slowly, painfully managed to say, "Sss, sssccare, ssscare-_duh_."

"I know you are. But the man who hurt you is dead now, and I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to help. Will you let me help you? If you let me free your hands, then I'll let you free your own feet."

"Dd...Dddohtt...hhhh, hhhurrt, mmme."

"I won't. Look, I'm going to pick up the knife now." He did so slowly. "I'm bringing it up so I can reach the zip-ties. I'm going to set the blade against the ties, so you need to stay very still so I won't cut you, okay?" He kept moving slowly, explaining every movement as he went, until Peter's hands were finally free. The boy started to cry again.

_"Hurts,"_ he finally signed shakily.

"It's because your blood circulation was restricted for so long, and now that the pressure's finally eased, your veins are trying to adjust to having enough blood flowing through them again. It will hurt for a little while, but it will pass. Tell me when it stops hurting, then I'll give you the knife so you can free your feet."

xXx

*contacts family

Jason dispatched the kidnappers quickly, then turned to the child in the corner and swore.

John was gagged and tied to a chair in classic kidnap victim fashion. Alarmingly, his wide eyes were staring straight ahead, as if he wasn't aware that someone had come to rescue him.

Jason hurried to him and cut his bonds, easing him off the chair and into his arms. "Oh, geez.... Johnnybird, this is going to hurt. I'm so sorry, kiddo. I'll make it quick."

He was even more alarmed when he ripped off the duct tape and John didn't even blink. "Crap." He rubbed the boy's mouth to ease the pain he was surely feeling but apparently not registering, and did a quick med scan. No broken bones or serious injuries. There were a few tears in his clothing, but not enough to indicate violence other than some rough handling. There was a bruise on his face, but he couldn't do anything about that; the only visible blood was dry; there were some small cuts and the harshly chafed wrists. Jason disinfected and bandaged those quickly, yet still, John hadn't moved. It was like he was asleep with his eyes open.

"Johnny. Come on, baby bird, look at me. I'm here - I made it in time, you're alive, you're safe. ...Damn it, Dick, _look at me_."

Still nothing. Jason gave up and scooped the boy into his arms, striding out toward his motorcycle. ...Which he couldn't transport a basically unconscious child on, so he had to wait for the Batmobile to come screeching up.

*John gets added to the nest Peter made in the cave at Alfred's feet

xXx

*it's night by now; joker's dragged jack up to the top of a skyscraper and is gloating as news helicopters circle

Jack brought up his hands to sign, _"Fly."_ That was all the warning he gave before he lunged forward and leaped out of the shattered window.

Screams erupted from the crowd below, but Nightwing dove off his own perch at just the right moment to catch the child in midair. Still falling, he shot a grapple line, but his resulting swing was too wide - without his other arm free to shoot a second line, he was going to crash, probably fatally, into the side of the building he was heading toward.

Red Hood came in, drawing his line across Nightwing's to slow it, and let go of his first grapple gun to avoid tangling with Nightwing. He fired the second one he had ready to take him safely to a nearby rooftop.

Nightwing had gone into a wobbling spin, barely controlled but at least in a shallower swing. He was still far from any safe landing sites and hindered by the child he was clutching.

This time it was Red Robin, catching Nightwing as he passed so that their swings were briefly aligned. He disengaged on the way back; Nightwing was freefalling for a second, having let go of his original grapple gun to take hold of the second one Red Robin had given him. Firing it brought him into a much more ideal swing, and by that time, he was close enough to the ground. He let out the line until he could drop safely to the pavement.

He promptly collapsed, giving in to throbbing ache of his right arm. Jack clung to him, bawling. The crowd was cheering wildly, barely held back by the police; a couple of officers made their way toward the child.

"Nightwing, that was _amazing_," one of the officers said reverently.

Nightwing gave a weak but friendly smile. "Thanks."

The other officer was saying soothing things and trying to pick up Jack, but his cries rose to panicked screams and he gripped Nightwing more tightly than ever. The vigilante tried to reassure him, but then Red Hood came looming out of nowhere, easily scooping up the terrified boy. Jack immediately wrapped his arms around the man's neck. "We know his dad," he told the officers. "We'll get him home." Then, when they started to protest, "You've got a perp to keep you occupied."

Robin, with all the dramatic timing of his father, came swooping in at that moment to drop the hog-tied, beaten-to-a-pulp Joker at the officers' feet. Without a word of his usual boasting, he went straight to the little boy and patted him. "Do not fret, child," he said imperiously. "That wretched piece of filth cannot hurt you now."

["Robin,"] Jack said tearfully, still clinging for dear life to Red Hood's neck. ["Good boy. I want Daddy."]

"He's coming, kiddo," Hood murmured. He could hear the Batmobile approaching already.

Red Robin joined the group, stooping to help Nightwing to his feet. He said something and Nightwing nodded, then the Batmobile was swerving to a halt beside the group with Batman already emerging from it.

The Dark Knight swept straight to the child, who was reaching for him; Jack changed hands in one smooth movement and buried his face in black Kevlar.

Batman, carrying Jack in one arm, turned to grip Nightwing's good elbow. "How bad is it?"

"I'll be fine in a minute."

"Get in the car."

"I just said--"

"Get in the car."

Nightwing sighed and trudged toward the Batmobile without further protest. While he was still within earshot, Batman gave his Robins a look that encompassed the whole group. "All of you did well. I'm impressed." He immediately strode to the car, his sons showing no sign of their glowing pride except for the smile on Robin's face.

Batman waited until Nightwing was in, then tried to set Jack on the seat beside him, but the child screamed in protest and tightened his full-body grip. It wasn't until Red Robin climbed into the car from the other side and held out his arms that Jack finally allowed himself to be peeled away from Batman. He whimpered, nestling between his big brothers, and Batman got into the front to drive. Red Hood and Robin retreated to the rooftops.

*the footage goes viral; gotham is super-proud of their vigilantes; also some "and with NO POWERS, too! suck it, metropolis!!"

*not sure whether or not to have superman seeing the drama unfold on tv and rushing to help, only to get there an instant too late or maybe only just in time to lower nightwing the last few feet to the ground; the bats managed to handle it without him XD

xXx

Bruce had become attuned to the sounds of his young children. He knew without having to look that the wordless little wail was John's, and he hurried to comfort the boy.

"Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...?!"

"You're safe, John. You're safe. I've got you, you're safe."

John squirmed in his arms, clutching him, biting him, restlessly refusing to settle.

"Johnny?" Dick called, coming over to join them on the couch. "You're home, Johnnybird. They're gone, they can't hurt you anymore."

John did not acknowledge him, practically climbing over Bruce in frustration.

"_Ow_, John. Do not bite." Uncomfortable with John practically burying himself between his father and the back of the couch, Bruce dragged him back into his lap and wrapped his arms around him, trying to make him feel secure. John pinned Bruce's arms in place.

"I can't believe how touchy he is after everything Laughs did to him," Jason remarked.

"I like it," Dick mumbled. "I'd rather cuddle with someone who might turn around and hit me than not be touched at all."

Damian, probably thinking he was being subtle, shifted so he was leaning against his oldest brother as he sketched.

Dick smiled broadly and gestured. "See? This, I _love this_. Took me the longest time to figure out why some of you think it's annoying."

John had still not settled down. Even while being held tightly, he was still pressing back hard against Bruce's chest, shoving with his feet to get more force, whimpering and fussing like a toddler.

"_John_," Bruce said in exasperation. "I've _got_ you. What are you trying to do?"

Dick suddenly understood, but Cassandra was faster. She plucked John out of Bruce's arms, ignored the resulting scream, put the boy on the floor, and lay down on top of him.

John instantly quieted. After a moment, he wriggled to get comfortable, then went still at last.

Everyone stared for a while.

"Just...'lay on me,' " Duke remarked.

"Well, nothing bad can get to him through Cass," Tim mused.

Cassandra smiled and ducked her head to kiss John, looking like a mother hen hiding a frightened chick beneath her. John closed his eyes.

Hours passed, and he seemed calm, but screamed every time it looked like Cassandra might get up. He ate if a plate of food was placed near enough, but absolutely nothing could tempt him away from his safe haven.

Bruce finally had to be the bad guy in order to get him ready for bed. He dragged John away from Cassandra and carried the sobbing boy to his room.

Even with Dick helping, they couldn't get John into the bathtub. He let them take his clothes off without protest, but when they tried to shift him into the tub, he screamed and dug in his fingers (and teeth) and refused to let go of them.

They couldn't bathe him while he clung to them so tightly, but he did better with the shower stall. As long as Dick stayed between him and the stall door, John didn't cling or scream, but he also stared anxiously into space and didn't lift a finger to bathe himself. Dick had to wash his hair and scrub a loofah over his body. As soon as they pulled him out of the shower stall, John clung and cried and did not calm down until Dick tucked him into bed and lay on him.

"How long is this going to last?" Bruce asked in dismay.

"No idea. Even I've never been this traumatized before."

Dick had to sleep in the boys' bed that night. They did all right until about midnight, when Jack suddenly sat up and wouldn't stop screaming his head off until Bruce came to lie down on the other side of the bed, sandwiching the birds between himself and Dick. Jack curled into his chest and fell back asleep, but Peter climbed over Dick, putting his oldest brother between himself and Bruce.

John had not improved by morning. He struggled and fussed unless he was being pressed, and he refused to eat at the table.

"Take him to the living room," Bruce finally said.

"I need a break," Dick pleaded. "I've been pressing him all night."

After some experimentation, they found that it wasn't simple pressure John was craving - he insisted on full contact with a living human body (Titus wasn't enough for him, either). It was Cassandra who again volunteered to get John settled on the thick carpet, by which point the boy looked too tired to eat, even when Bruce set a dry bowl of his favorite cereal beside him. "Leave it," Cass said. "Later."

By midmorning, the cereal was gone, and John was even playing little games with Peter and Jack when they came to share their toys with him. He still screamed when his protector tested boundaries.

"...We're going to need to work out a shift schedule," Bruce realized in dismay.

"When was the last time he peed?" Jason suddenly spoke up. "He might not want to get up even for that."

Getting John to use the toilet was almost a two-person job; it was certainly easier with a second set of hands to maneuver around the boy's clinging and resisting and crying. Even when he'd been cleaned up, he sobbed all the way to the living room until he was tucked back under a big brother, at which point he fell asleep in exhaustion. Jason, carefully distributing his weight, opened the book he'd come prepared with and settled in for a long wait.

For the rest of that day and the next, they all did their share. (Most of them, anyway. When Damian nobly offered to take a turn, John struggled beneath him, screamed when Damian held him forcefully, then kept screaming when the frustrated teenager let him go. "Dami," Dick realized, only partially successful in holding back his laughter, "I think you're too small." "WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M TOO SMALL?!") Even Tim, when he came home from work, leaned back on his traumatized little brother as he typed on his tablet, squashing the satisfied child between his body and the couch.

Bruce had to be the bad guy again so that John could have the breaks and exercise he needed despite his insistence to the contrary. Bruce took the boy on periodic walks, holding his hand or putting an arm around his shoulders but refusing to carry or fully hug him on the way. John spent the entire time trying unsuccessfully cuddle or climb him, fussing and complaining and screeching and sobbing when Bruce continued on at the same slow but steady pace. Even when he was finally allowed to lie down and be pressed by one of his older siblings, he cried like his heart was broken for a long time before finally falling asleep.

"He's barely said a word since the kidnapping," Jason murmured on the second evening, "not even in sign." They were all sitting around the living room, pretty much just gazing at John. The boy, currently tucked under Duke, stared back apprehensively.

"It's not getting better," Tim said. "We can't let this become normal."

Bruce was mentally preparing himself to be mean to his young son yet again, but then Dick said, "I have an idea."

o.o.o

John hated the flight. Strapped into a safety harness, he cried and struggled as best he could while being so confined, and clung to Clark's hand so tightly that even the Man of Steel remarked at one point, "That's quite a grip you've got there, John."

"Almost there, Johnny," Dick said. "Almost there."

With Clark accompanying them, Bruce didn't technically need more help other than Dick, but Jason, Stephanie, and Damian had come along for the sheer fun of it. Barry was helping Cassandra with the younger birds back in Gotham, and Alfred was flying the plane.

When they were high enough, they did one last check of their equipment. John was wired up with scanners and sensors, his parachute could be remotely activated by any of the Bats, and his suit could be directly controlled by either Dick or Bruce. Superman was there as a safeguard and to ensure that the child had a gentle landing even if everything went perfectly.

The younger Bats dove first, whooping with excitement. Then Dick stepped up to the edge with John and asked through the comms, "You ready to fly, Johnnybird?"

John just stared at him through the goggles, his expression the exact same mix of desperation and pleading and despair as it had been in the past few days when he wasn't being pressed. Dick took him over the edge, Clark carefully keeping pace; Bruce went last, keeping a close eye on John.

There was an expected spike of adrenaline at first, then a minute later, John's endorphin levels were off the charts. Bruce relaxed a little at the indication that maybe this hadn't been a mistake, that Dick really did know what he was doing.

John gave them all a scare when he suddenly pulled in his limbs and dropped like a rock, but before Superman could grab him or Bruce could remotely activate his suit, he'd spread himself out again. He was now falling backward, and his eyes were closed.

"My God, Dick - you really are a bird," Clark marveled. Dick laughed and adjusted so that he was falling faceup as well.

Everything went off without a hitch. When they neared the ground, Clark took hold of John and slowed their descent. He landed as gently as a feather with the boy in his arms, and tried to set him on his feet.

It didn't work, because John seemed to have gone boneless. Dick hurried up, shedding his parachute, and took the child from Clark; he sank to the ground with John in his arms. "Johnny? You okay, buddy?" His family gathered around, watching in concern.

John moved his arms, but they were weak and shaky. Dick had to support them so that John could finally sign, _"Again. Fly again."_

His older siblings burst into laughter. "Only you, Dick!" Jason cackled. "_Only you_ would see being thrown out of a plane as therapy!"

**Bit from an upcoming chapter of _[Shelter]_ that I really liked but had to shorten because it messed up the flow:**

Back home, the occasional flying rides Peter and Jack were able to coax from their Bat siblings were not enough for Richard John Grayson, Ctr.; oh no. No, this boy insisted on being _flung off a building_ before being caught by a Bat to finish out the ride.

OF COURSE it was Nightwing who'd started the game, and it gave Bruce heart attacks even with safety equipment, but there was no way to stop a Grayson once he'd discovered a new adrenaline-pumping activity, particularly one that involved flying. John (and Dick, for that matter) didn't even like the building game as much as whenever he was able to convince any of his _actual_ flying friends to take him at least 10,000 feet into the air and then drop him. The Kryptonians knew by now not to drop John without Bruce's permission and paranoid safety measures, but Starfire was more impulsive about giving in to the child's puppy eyes.

xXx

**TRIGGER WARNINGS for the first scene: Attempted sexual assault of a child; the child messily kills his attacker before the man gets very far.**


End file.
